There’s this one weird trick doctors don’t want you to know… because it doesn’t work. It’s natural to hope for a one-size-fits-all, lose-weight-fast-and-forever solution. And if your sibling or friend is doing it or you saw it on TikTok, it can be tempting to just give it a try and see what happens. But what’s the science behind these diets? Are some better than others? And will your nutritionist judge you if you try one?
On this episode of Mayo Clinic on Nutrition, we talk with Dr. Summer Allen about the good and the fad: what makes diets work (or seem like they do) and what you should consider before trying one yourself.
Find us online at Mayo Clinic Press for more health and wellness articles, podcasts and books. Do you have feedback, questions or topic suggestions? Email us at mcppodcasts@mayo.edu.
Read the transcript:
Tara Schmidt: This is “On Nutrition,” a podcast from Mayo Clinic where we dig into the latest nutrition trends and research to help you understand what’s health, and what’s hype. I’m Tara Schmidt, a registered dietician with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
This episode, we’re talking about this one weird trick doctors don’t want you to know. Because it doesn’t work. In other words: fad diets. It’s natural to hope for a one-size-fits-all, lose-weight-fast-and-forever solution. After all, if humans are 99.9% genetically identical, there should be something that works for all of us. But is the answer to that eating grapefruit with every meal?
This episode, I’m joined by Dr. Summer Allen to sort through the good and the fad. Dr. Allen is a family medicine physician at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, with a background in nutritional sciences. Thanks for being here with me today, Dr. Allen.
Dr. Summer Allen: Thank you for having me.
Tara Schmidt: We get kind of a fun topic today, which is fad diets, which obviously is in the world of health and nutrition and medicine technically, but it’s a little bit more on the commercial side of things, a little bit more on the wacky, if I can say, side of medicine. Can you think of the craziest diet that you have done or heard of from a patient or read about on the internet?
Dr. Summer Allen: There’s different elimination diets or cleanses. It’s basically just a bunch of liquid. I’ve seen different variations on it where people are doing kind of like a powder-type drink, or just liquids with pills and all this, but they basically don’t eat or do anything for a set number of days and kind of cleanse their body and cleanse their system.
I’ve heard from friends, people I knew, and then patients who have mentioned it, and it’s the idea that it’ll cleanse the toxins. It’ll reset your body. You’ll have greater success in your weight loss journey and all this stuff. The unfortunate part is that I always just feel bad. People are grasping at it for help and support. They struggle through this part. They see a five, maybe even 10 pound change of fluid shifts and other stuff over those couple of days.
Then they are absolutely famished and starving by the end of it. I still remember one, cause it was someone that we knew and they were like, “I just want a pizza” and they ate like an entire pizza themselves at the end of it, which, in the grand scheme, I don’t know how much that helped them because I don’t know if it really reset stuff.
Tara Schmidt: Do you remember what they used to call the master cleanse? I did that in college and I was going to be a dietician in college. I knew what I was doing, but my roommate was doing it and I was like, “I’ll do it with you.” It was horrible. Of course it was horrible. You’re drinking lemon juice and cayenne pepper. I don’t even remember. Oh, and Maple syrup?
Dr. Summer Allen: Yep. I think those are the ingredients in it. Yes.
Tara Schmidt: Yeah, I got skinny for like two days and then I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna go back to college now and eat my ramen noodles, and just because we’ve said it a few times now, can we talk about exactly what the body needs for cleansing? We’ve got kidneys, we’ve got a liver. Do we need to cleanse it ourselves?
Dr. Summer Allen: In the way that is being proposed by these cleansed diets, our body naturally does it. That’s what our liver is intended to do. It’s to process things that are metabolized by our liver. Same thing when it comes to our kidneys. Our kidneys are an organ in our body that will also process and will pass things that our body does not need. From a cleanse standpoint, our body does a miraculous job as long as we’re kind to it.
Tara Schmidt: When I say the phrase fad diet I kind of have my own definition that I’ll share with patients or, talk to people about how would you qualify a fad diet versus “that’s reasonable” that might be good for your health.
Dr. Summer Allen: I’m careful sometimes about the fad diet term and here’s why – it comes with assumptions, and it comes already with judgment, which is the hardest part for patients when they come in. I often start a discussion or conversation regarding diet or regarding how to adjust activity.
I’m careful about a fad diet because I want patients to be open with what they want to explore, or why they want to try it, or why they want to look at it. That term and what I think of as the keto-based one, or some of the different diet programs that are available for people to purchase meal plans and other things.
What I tell people is these are things that kind of come splashy, shiny and make promises that we’re hoping will make the reality of what it is to be on this journey easy. We want the easy button and that’s just not realistic. When someone’s promising that we have to be really cautious.
Tara Schmidt: I used to say, if it sounds too good to be true, it’s likely inappropriate. If it says you can lose 30 pounds and you don’t have to exercise, red flag, let’s not go there. I get asked sometimes if the Mayo Clinic Diet is a fad diet, so maybe we should address that.
Dr. Summer Allen: If you Google U. S. News and World Report, it ranks the Mayo Clinic diet as the number one commercial weight loss program and best diets overall.
Tara Schmidt: Are we on that list? Yeah. The Mayo Clinic Diet, I would say, is not trying to provide easy answers or give people some magic secret that you can’t find out there in the literature. It actually has a pretty interesting history because the Mayo Clinic Diet, as we know it today, all started because we were asked to create one.
This is some very historical piece of paper that says things like eggs, turkey, cabbage, and then someone brought it home to their local physician, came from Mayo and was like, “This is what my doctor said.” They claimed that it was the Mayo Clinic diet.
There’s lots of rumors about what that was. Then I don’t know, media marketing was like, “Aren’t you guys just making your own, people want it, they’re Googling it and you guys don’t have one.” That it’s not very exciting because we’re like, “No, the guidelines are good. Just eat your fruits and vegetables and your whole grains and your lean proteins. You need to have something that says Mayo Clinic diet on it.
With the Mayo Clinic Diet, we’re trying to give people something healthy and sustainable. But, there’s still a huge range of diets out there. Some are harmless, some are possibly healthy, and some are kind of bizarre. Especially when we’re talking about diets that can be way out there. Why do you think people go towards them?
Dr. Summer Allen: A lot of people ask me a lot of times, “Well, why are people doing all these different trends?” What used to be us just talking to each other, now it’s TikTok. They see diet on social media and why are people trying it?
When people are able to associate themselves with what they feel, somebody else going through the same thing or they imagine what they want themselves to be, or what they could be based off of said diet, even if it may not be true, unfortunately, then they’re willing to try it and willing to follow it.
Tara Schmidt: It’s motivating. If you see someone else having success doing whatever it may be; an exercise plan, a diet, even a medication, I want to be successful too. Then you look to them regardless if they’re a Tik Tocker or an actual physician or dietitian.
Dr. Summer Allen: I think the promise that’s made or given to so many of you will get results this time. It’s the yo-yo back and forth, or the up and down that they’ve seen, or what they feel like is the lack of results.
Then a lot of misinformation is what feeds all of this, because when they see someone else that they perceive again, to be in their same situation, and that’s the challenge and that’s where all of us [00:08:00] in healthcare that are trying to support people and help them on this journey have to think about how we present it.
Tara Schmidt: You brought up a good point. I always picture the graphs that we have published in research about people who go on a fad diet. It’s usually really impressive. They’re rapid weight loss, any diet out there, if it’s calorie restricted, you will lose weight. That’s math. But then whenever they decide that they can’t adhere to it anymore, that weight goes up pretty quickly. Always up to most baseline, sometimes a few pounds higher.
Then, if you compare that to someone who did a little bit more like a boring lifestyle, just good old diet and exercise, they will be more successful than the fad dieter one to two years. But their journey there was boring. It was a pound here and two pounds there.
We live in 2024. We want things fast. I just ordered something from Amazon. It better be here tomorrow.
Dr. Summer Allen: The message part is where the reality is; that sustainable weight loss which is about a pound, maybe two pounds at most per week for people. That’s not clearly the messaging at all that’s occurring in the media or in the mainstream for people. Look, you can get these results and you can get them quickly and you can achieve what you want. It’s hard at times to compete with that.
Tara Schmidt: That sometimes puts you or I in an awkward position because what we’re promoting is not as exciting or as new as something that’s coming out of TikTok this week, and it’s hard to convince people otherwise.
We have people who have been trying to lose weight, potentially for the majority of their life. That is, I think, physically and mentally exhausting. I’ve been doing this for X number of years. I want to be done.
Dr. Summer Allen: Absolutely. You can only fail at something for so long before it’s easier to just kind of toss your hands up and say, “Why try anymore? Why keep making the effort?”
That’s where there is a balance to strike where patients can proceed or start on a journey that starts to give them some results that they feel motivates them and helps them to then build on that in their longer term journey.
Tara Schmidt: When can, if at all, fad diets serve a Purpose?
Dr. Summer Allen: I think when they are built upon a long term goal of adjustments to diet, adjustments to activity, to lifestyle. When it’s set up in such a way where maybe a patient feels, “I need to restrict certain things,” or “I need to minimize this because my cravings are too intense,” tend to just make you crave that even more. You tend to then overeat it.
But if it’s allowing you to make long term adjustments and change and help your body adjust those cravings that you have, then that’s where it can be beneficial.
So if I say, “I’m going to chug this beverage made of blended up oats,” I’m probably not going to be able to do that every day before I get sick of it. But I might notice, “Hey, when I eat a whole grain for breakfast, that makes me feel fuller longer.” Or we might kickstart ourselves just by shaking things up. I probably can’t sustain cutting out carbs forever. But if I do it for a week, then I’ve definitely shown myself I can figure out how to cut out some of the more unhealthy carbs in my diet. Sometimes it’s what you need to help you get the ball rolling.
Tara Schmidt: Even in the Mayo Clinic diet, there’s a two week, what we call “lose it phase,” so it’s a little bit more restrictive than the rest of the Mayo Clinic diet, but how we describe it is this is kind of a challenge and a reset just for two weeks.
It can’t reset your taste buds. It can prove to you that you can get in 30 minutes or 60 minutes of exercise. It can prove to you that you can drink coffee with milk instead of your flavored creamer. I think sometimes it can give people motivation and confidence that they can ideally make small changes, not do a 180.
Dr. Summer Allen: That’s what makes so much of this a challenge for people is it is tied so much to their feelings of their self worth, their perceptions of themselves. I know for many it can often be linked back even to childhood and to things that happened to them as a child, whether it’s from parental figures, family members, other children, and all of that has shaped them. That’s what makes this so complex.
Tara Schmidt: So, fad diets: there’s no technical definition, but we’re talking about things that get lots of media hype and often promise dramatic transformation or easy answers. It makes sense to want that. Losing weight is hard. We want to experience that success we see online, or finally find that thing that works. Some of these diets seem way more exciting than plain old healthy eating and exercise.
But unfortunately, there’s just no evidence that they work for most people. But, if a fad diet can kickstart you on a journey to better eating, you don’t necessarily need to write it off. But with any type of diet, we should be mindful of the benefits and risks. Let’s talk more about whether there’s something to gain, and the potential for pain.
Tara Schmidt: Can we talk about a few of the most common diets that we probably hear about in office?
Dr. Summer Allen: Absolutely.
Tara Schmidt: Single foods people will eat are a grapefruit with every meal, or replace two meals a day with a particular brand of cereal, or chug blended up oats mixed with lime juice, or eat certain foods like yogurt, a sandwich from a restaurant for us. How do you feel about the long term impact, or is there risk with doing things like that, even when it’s short term?
Dr. Summer Allen: In some of those just grapefruit, or just having yogurt, you’re obviously restricting the variety in your food? There are certain vitamins and minerals. Can you balance that with a multivitamin? Certainly.
Why do people think they’re successful or why is it helpful? We are staying consistent with our calories. Often it’s very calorie restricted is why there’s a benefit.
But again, the reality for any beyond a few weeks, even a few months, even a year is that they spend the rest of their lives eating those same foods. It doesn’t allow eating with family, eating with friends, the social aspects of eating, and it does get boring. That’s the challenge I often see for people with these kinds of one-food-type diet programs.
Tara Schmidt: Eating is not going to go away likely in your life. I’ll say if you want to do this now to get that jumpstart to get your motivation going, I hear you. Because when the scale starts to move, [it’s] “I’m doing this. Let’s continue. It’s working.” But I will say, “Do you intend to do this in six months? What are you going to do at Christmas? What are you going to do during Hanukkah? Is this your long term intention? I’ve never had anyone say yes, especially with a single food. It’s not that any of the foods we’ve mentioned are overly nutritionally dense. It’s calorie restricted.
Dr. Summer Allen: Correct.
Tara Schmidt: Yogurt, or a bowl of cereal. That’s not very many calories. It’s just math, everyone. This one’s a little more complex because there is clinical research behind it for some diagnoses. Low carb, high fat. What is the benefit? Is it just the calorie restriction? Because now I’m not eating my chips and toast and I’m not having alcohol. Why do they work?
Dr. Summer Allen: Specifically, that kind of low carb is a whole food type. When you focus on the vegetables, the fruits, the fish, the eggs, those things in general, especially when they’re protein-based, they will fill the starvation side for people and make them feel full for longer. That’s where that helps.
The amount of calories required to do that and achieve that a lot of times is less. That’s where people note the benefit and because it’s lower in carbs, it’s avoiding a lot more of the processed things and starches and stuff that turn into sugar and turn into fat in our body. That’s the upside people see. Again, from a sustainability standpoint that becomes a challenge.
Tara Schmidt: If they feel like it’s sustainable, they’re doing some kind of low carb program, often high fat. Do you think that there are long term benefits to that if they lose weight, and if their blood sugar is under better control? Or are you worried about any risks, like increases in LDL, which we’ve absolutely seen, but maybe that’s not as scary as it seems to be. What are your thoughts on the risks versus the benefits?
Dr. Summer Allen: Over the years of watching that particular type of diet, the variations that people have achieved is what I’ve noted. For the vast majority, they achieve weight loss. They come in and they’ve lost inches and maybe not as much because they feel like “I built muscle,” but they’ve lost some weight as well.
Lipid panels, if you do follow those lipid panels, that triglycerides, they’re even HDL and LDL. Primarily, the two that I see jump with it are LDL and even triglycerides and sometimes along with that cholesterol. They’re then frustrated because one of the things people are trying to achieve sometimes is to avoid cholesterol medicine.
I’ve had patients come in and express to me their frustration at Dr. Allen or Summer, “I did what I was supposed to, I’ve lost weight, why is this worse?”
Again, it’s that balance. We want to hold onto one number and tell them that one number is absolute. Probably LDL has stayed consistently as one we do try to focus on. But when they see that get worse, which I’ve seen historically happen for many, that’s the difficult part.
They saw the inches, they saw the weight loss, yet they had the opposite effect on potentially their blood vessels and all that. That’s where it’s a balance too, in that even a medication I can give someone to protect their heart, I always tell them it’s not an absolute, it has to be a balance.
Tara Schmidt: With this type of dieting specifically, I do believe there is a better or more nutritious way to do it. Sometimes I feel like with low carbs they grab their beef sticks, they grab their cheese, they feel like they can eat as many eggs and red meat as they want, and that still may produce the weight loss.
You still may be successful. But then I start to think, one about your heart, but two, some of those things, processed meats are carcinogenic, like actually listed as carcinogens. So then, how do we weigh? Is this good? Is this bad?
But I also want people to know that there are healthy fats out there, of course. But I don’t see anyone doing a low carb diet with salmon and olive oil. I just don’t see people doing it, unfortunately.
Dr. Summer Allen: Correct.
Tara Schmidt: What about intermittent fasting? There are technically multiple ways to do intermittent fasting, but they all have some sort of restriction. You restrict for two days, you restrict for this many hours. That one is very, very common. What’s the theory outside of calorie restriction? If I don’t eat ice cream at 8 o’clock at night because I stopped eating at 6, well, yeah, I get that. But is there more to it than just calorie restriction?
Dr. Summer Allen: I always tell people you could ask five different specialists in this area and you’ll hear about five different answers on their approach. There’s alternate day fasting, there’s the daily time restricted. What they’re trying to get back to what someone termed the hunter gatherer’s time where we used to historically fast intermittently because McDonald’s wasn’t down the road. You had to cook it at home or prepare it, or you had to bring it with you.
If you left and you were gone from home for eight hours, you may not be able to eat that day until you got back home. Going back to that kind of philosophy where I don’t have to always eat and eat immediately is a little bit of what this is leveraging on. It’s trying to do something. The term that they’re using is called metabolic switching. When the body does not have food, it will start to burn fat to produce calories. I do balance it for people. There is also some literature about the starvation phase that the body gets into, meaning that if we restrict for too long and/or put our body into more starvation, then it will hold on to stuff.
It will stop burning because it fears when it is that you are going to eat again? You have to be careful about that part. The other part that I’ve seen intermittent fasting for support or help is a greater concept that I talk a lot with patients about intuitive eating. It’s something conceptually children are born with. I try to tell parents all the time to inherently not rid them of that, and I explain how children have an inherent ability to know when they are hungry and when they are not.
Only when we rid them of that, when we make snacks readily available or force them to eat when they say they’re full, do we ruin and lose that in them. Then that’s a challenge to get back. For many, and what I’ve seen, intermittent fasting starts to bring some of that conceptually back for people and/or retrains their stomach and their mind by allowing them to listen to their body and eat because they’re hungry and not just eat to eat.
Tara Schmidt: I always used to say that infants who are breastfeeding are the best examples of mindful eaters because they technically have an unlimited food source and will turn their head or swat at you when they’re done eating. They’ll eat when they’re hungry. So yes, in toddlers as well.
Would you agree that the essential theme of fad dieting, or we can even say dieting for the purpose of weight loss, is calorie restriction? All of these different programs may have other health benefits, may have other health risks, but at the end of the day, we’re likely losing weight because we’re restricting our calories from baseline.
Dr. Summer Allen: Correct. It’s what we take in and what we put out. Now the diets all focus on just what you’re restricting from a calorie standpoint. You could keep eating what you’re eating, yet the only way you’re going to achieve it is you have to then burn 500 to 1, 000 calories, and when people actually try to measure with their physical activity how much they actually burn, a long time of exercise is necessary to burn that amount. Why the diets focus on the calorie restriction is because they feel like that’s the easier part. “Easier” I say it with air quotes around it. To try to motivate or achieve for people is by just restricting their calories.
Tara Schmidt: With all these diets – single food, low carb and/or high fat, and intermittent fasting – the main reason any of them quote unquote “work,” is plain old calorie restriction. Some may have unique benefits, like putting the body in a state where it’ll burn more fat, but these diets also come with risks. For example, low carb-high fat diets might cause you to lose weight but increase your cholesterol. Or intermittent fasting might put your body in starvation mode where your metabolism slows down.
With all of these, it’s important to choose what’s best for you and your health – what can you actually stick to for more than a month, and what can help you form habits that are going to support you in the long term? Let’s talk more about how we can make those decisions.
I don’t necessarily want to feel like we are bashing fad diets, because what’s most important to me is that people ideally find a healthy way to do it, but that they find something that does work for them, that does motivate them, that works in their lifestyle and it should work in their lifestyle, hopefully 10 years from now.
When a new diet pops up on Tik Tok or Instagram or on a times magazine cover, are there red flags that you would look for in saying, this is a fad, stay away?
Dr. Summer Allen: I did write down what my key triggers are that I tell people to be careful of when something pops up. If it promises you rapid weight loss, if it says you’re going to lose even 10 pounds, or you’re going to lose 30 pounds in a month — something that’s promising that you have to be really cautious about. Because a pound, two pounds a week at max would be what we would expect from someone for it to be sustainable.
Another thing to look out for is when the diet requires you to eliminate foods, or it’s very specific that you can never have this again, or you can never eat this. You may need to moderate or decrease or kind of control for a short period of time just to establish a new baseline for yourself and work on your cravings. But if it’s telling you, well, you can never eat this again, it’s unlikely to be sustainable or successful.
The very rigid rules that will prevent you from living your normal day to day life and or restrict you where you’re only having shakes, or only doing prepackaged meals for the rest of your life. That’s again going to be often unsustainable. Then you’re not going to get any of the benefits and more. Just the side effects of feeling sluggish, low energy and all that stuff when your calories are so restricted. Your brain won’t be able to function the way it needs to.
Tara Schmidt: There’s not only fad diets out there, but there are diets that are even endorsed by clinical societies or by the medical community. Are there any that you say, this is a reasonable, healthy diet, be it Mediterranean or DASH or MIND or whole food, plant-based? Do you feel comfortable telling people that there is a diet out there that’s healthy for them?
Dr. Summer Allen: DASH was one I remember historically in training. DASH, meaning the (D)ietary (A)pproaches to (S)top (H)ypertension diet, is linked to really helping with that high blood pressure component. I think a lot of the evidence around that of trying to minimize and/or focus on the lower salt in people.
It’s about like one teaspoon of table salt per day for people. The other aspects, if you really look at some of the ones you mentioned, like Mediterranean and DASH, they focused on fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, and fish more as a meat source versus red meat — but those are not surprising. Again, I just mentioned three and they’re crossed universally. To say one in particular is the right thing for someone isn’t quite right. Again it needs to be a balance on what’s realistic for them.
What is possible within their family dynamic, what is possible within their financial aspect too.
Financially, many of these things in order to eat healthy, or to have this healthy diet, it’s expensive. That’s where many other counties, states, other places have even tried to create a kind of food co-op for people and local public vegetable gardens where people can come and pick that stuff up at a more reasonable cost because it is hard sometimes to find those type of items in a healthy and sustainable way that’s not processed or frozen.
It starts talking with them about what ways that you can prepare and have vegetables that won’t be ruined the next day because you didn’t eat them all.
Tara Schmidt: What does your environment or your culture do in terms of food? The DASH and the Mediterranean diet, might not fit in someone’s culture and that’s okay. We can still use those nutritional practices of it’s unsaturated fat, it’s whole grains, it’s vegetables, and it doesn’t have to look like what is on the internet when you google DASH. Neither one is bad, they’re probably both good.
Dr. Summer Allen: I heard a colleague say this recently that a diet is like a marriage, find one that you’re willing to stick with. That’s really well said, because truly any of the fad diets that we were just discussing or any of these things that are promising results that you’re going to be unable to sustain or unable to stick with long term, have such a high risk and such a high potential for weight gain after it. To lead to frustration and disappointment at the end of it.
Thinking instead, what can I do to adjust to my lifestyle? That’s what I favor more when people ask “What would you suggest” or “What would you recommend?”
Is there an approach to a diet that allows you to eat with your family, that allows you to eat out with your friends, that has this balance and really focuses on moderation and what that looks like.
Tara Schmidt: It’s individualized. It has to be individualized. There’s no one-size-fits-all diet. If there was, I’d make a lot of money selling it. Along the lines of that, what consumers or patients should be asking themselves? One of the questions might be, “Am I at risk of disordered eating” or “developing an eating disorder” because that is the number one cause of them is dieting itself, whether well intentioned or not. Can I sustain this? Will I feel good about this? Any other questions that you’d have people self reflect on?
Dr. Summer Allen: I often ask patients what does health mean to them? They say, “Oh, well, my diabetes is under control,” or “My blood pressure is under control.”
I say, “Well, thank you. You are doing what we’ve taught you to think, that health is truly what it means to you. Interestingly, no one’s ever asked them, and for many it is to play with their grandkids, to be around for their children, to be able to walk up a flight of stairs, or to be able to walk to their mailbox without being short of breath, to be able to do things and not be in pain.
There’s no parameters that are set around that. I can’t tell them. I mean, for one person, it may be that they need to lose 10 pounds. One person, it might be five pounds. One person, it might be even maintaining and just getting physically active that makes that difference. Approaching it with what your goals are. What are you trying to achieve? Let’s see how this journey looks for you that gets you to that goal. Because that is more motivating than a number.
As I’ve helped people quit smoking, help people quit other things, it has to be an internal motivation. There has to be a self-driven desire to better yourself, because I want to feel better, I want to not feel the way that I’m feeling now, that has to be in there, and really reflecting on what is their inherent desire for this? What are they trying to do? It’s not just to appease a spouse, a family member, or appease me as their primary care clinician. What is driving them?
Tara Schmidt: I’ve worked in bariatric surgery for about 10 years now, and anecdotally, grandkids are the number one motivator. I swear 7 out of 10 say they name their grandkids, playing with their grandkids at the park, being on the floor with their grandkids, living a longer life, or seeing them graduate college, or get married. Grandkids are important. Which is why my mother treats my kids differently than she treats me.
Dr. Summer Allen: I would agree. Both my in-laws are grandparents and my own parents say yes, and they say it is the best job in the world. I imagine seeing their joy.
Tara Schmidt: I would add to that, if I can, not always going to be the time. You may want to lose weight, it may be medically appropriate for you to lose weight, but this is not the season. I am retiring, or I’ve got kids in the home, or I’m really, really stressed in my work, or we’re financially unstable. It’s okay.
You will ideally live for many more years. You don’t have to lose weight today. You can have a conversation about what you can do today? Maybe it’s more movement, etc. I always see that people feel like it’s very, very immediate, but their weight gain likely wasn’t very, very immediate, and they’re likely going to be more successful should they choose to diet if they are ready at that point in time.
Dr. Summer Allen: Absolutely. Not to forget that maintaining weight is still an accomplishment in itself. Even if you said, “If this is not the season,” okay, then set the goal for, can my weight stay around where it is right now? I don’t gain any more and that’s still an accomplishment in itself.
Tara Schmidt: Especially around the holidays or vacations. I will say I know you’re on a weight loss trend. Please don’t expect that for the next month or so. But if you can maintain and then get back on the horse, that’s the most important part. You’re doing great.
Dr. Summer Allen: Absolutely.
Tara Schmidt: Well, Dr. Allen, thank you again for your time today. I think it was lovely chatting with you. Appreciate you being here.
Dr. Summer Allen: Thank you for having me.
Tara Schmidt: If you’re thinking about going on a diet, or scrolling through TikTok, make sure to watch out for red flags. If something promises results that are too good to be true, claims you’ll lose weight at an unsustainable rate, or severely restricts what you eat, approach with caution.
Instead, consider diets that could be more medically appropriate, like DASH or Mediterranean. If you’re not sure what’s a good diet for you, this is a great conversation to have with your doctor.
But at the end of the day, it should be something that works for you, and lets you live a life that brings you joy and meaning. What can you stick to? What’s going to help you enjoy your food, and feel healthy in your body? You know yourself better than any advice you’re going to find on the internet.
That’s all for this episode. But if you’ve got a question or topic suggestion, you can leave us a voicemail at 507-538-6272 – we might even feature your voice on the show!
For more “On Nutrition” episodes and resources, check us out online at mayoclinic.org/onnutrition.
Thanks for listening! Until next time, eat well, and be well.
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